The Last New Year
by the-anonymous-c
Summary: December 31st, 2003- January 1st, 2004. A chronicle of the last new year Mello spends at Wammy's House before L's death. Before the world as he knows it changes forever.
1. part I

It was Wammy's House. It was full dark, a quarter until twelve. Everyone was celebrating the new year, taking down sparkling apple cider bottle by bottle (and no one was stopping any of them for once, in the spirit of the thing), and Mello was hiding out in his corner of the room.

It really was his corner; he'd already punched out two kids who'd tried to make it otherwise, and since they were only non-letters, and nine to his fourteen, they'd backed down without a fuss. No one had been there to supervise it, and Mello was lounging with a secret little sample bottle of grey goose vodka up the sleeve of his black sweatshirt. The vodka was by the graces of Matt, who was uncommonly good at lock-picking and shop-lifting, though he didn't seem to glory enough in either and usually stuck with internet hacking. Whatever. The corner was by the graces of no one but Mello, who wanted nothing more than to be alone tonight.

He didn't understand it. No one else seemed to even have noticed it, the way that Mello spoke now with a darker tone to his words, how when he turned his head it was with a wariness that was unwarranted by the safety and warmth of the well-guarded institution. How he was changing. They probably only saw the over-eager, hyperactive child who'd come through the doors only by the graces of L. The playful, thrusting bully. They wouldn't know otherwise because from that day forward, as far as Mello was concerned, they never looked.

None of them, not really, not even Matt who was up in the room they shared playing his latest acquisition in the realm of video games. "I've almost beat the last level, in a minute, Mells!"—that had been a half hour, and still no sign of him. Mello hadn't protested so much for once as he closed the door, half-hoping that his silence would rouse Matt from the depths of his gamer's daze. But it hadn't, and here he was, alone on the cusp of the new year. It was exactly how he wanted it. Every other year, he and Matt had curled up on the window seat in the back of the room, well out of Roger's view, splitting their own bottle of cider between the two of them and mocking the performances on the television.

A noise-maker blared obnoxiously from the corner of the room. Mello fidgeted with the vodka in his sleeve but didn't drink. He would wait—tradition, and all that. Several of the older kids who fancied themselves in pairs were cuddling up to one another. Mello wanted to punch them in the face, but he kept his steady, dead expression on the flickering screen. Control—how many times had he been told, Mello, control yourself—yet he'd kept a better cap on it than they would ever know. Control: it was one of his specialties.

And then it was time. The countdown had begun and Mello's mouth watered for some chocolate, for the drink up his sleeve, for everything to just be over and done—

"29! 28! 26!" Some of the kids, young and older alike, began to shout out the numbers with the people gathered in Times Square. Stupid mule-face Linda was edging up to stand at the shoulder of the boy she'd been eyeing the whole night. Mello could have told her she didn't have a snowball's chance in hell, not with that face.

"15! 14! 13!" Roger poked his head in briefly, then retreated for once, giving them the last few seconds to do whatever they pleased before the next round of exams in the coming weeks. One of the littlest boys, Johnny-wet-the-bed, belched loudly. Someone blew a noise-maker from _inside_ the room this time. Matt was not going to come down from his game.

"10! 9! 8!" Mello tried to feel angry but he didn't feel anything at all. He was becoming hot, he needed to leave the room, sleep it off. He thought that every night, well, maybe this time it would work. He would wake up, and he would be normal again._ Normal again. What a joke, _he thought as his eyes scanned the room. _Not a one of us normal in the whole bunch._

"6! 5! 4!" His eyes skimmed past a row of three couples, leaning in in preparation for their stupid little chaste pecks, to the one other person alone in the room.

Near was sitting, as always, a good couple of yards away, fidgeting with the tiny pieces of a large, blank puzzle. _Same as every year, _Mello thought caustically, and, as though his thought had somehow travelled the distance between them, Near turned. He did not, in a motion that Mello would call scathingly, "classic Near", stare off at some point behind Mello's head, vaguely twisting his hair. He looked directly at Mello with eyes that were large and dark and hideously empty. Mello was suddenly overly conscious of Matt's absence by his side, of anything indeed, that could get between himself and those eyes.

Near smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. It was to Mello a dark smile, a smile that said _I know. _

And Mello believed it, because for all Near was a freak, he was good for seeing. Remembering.

Noticing.

"3! 2! 1!"

The contact between their eyes burned dark and hollow and deep, and it seemed to Mello that with the dropping of the ball came a dropping of something much larger in the depths of him. The space it left was gaping.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

The sound of several noise-makers went off, everyone leaned out of their kisses—Mello had missed the actual action, thank god—and Near turned back to his puzzle. As Mello watched, he reached up and twined a strand of hair around one long fine finger. He did not turn around at Mello's persistent glare.

"Mells!"

Matt pushed through the crowd, past Linda and the boy she'd been ogling (they were now standing arm in arm. Mello couldn't bring himself to even laugh).

"Geez, I kept calling for you. I thought you'd be at the window seat. What the hell..."

Matt trailed off as Mello brushed past him, weaving through sleeping children and laughing teenagers, taking the stairs one at a time. He didn't bother to run. On the landing he stopped to take the little bottle of vodka from his sleeve, twisting off the cap and tipping it back. He took nearly the whole thing in one swallow and felt it burn clear and awesome down the back of his throat, felt the blooming of warmth in his stomach. Behind him he could hear Matt coming. Maybe he was sorry he had missed the festivities. _Why, it was a shit-fest, _Mello thought of saying, and felt a crooked grin split his face.

The new year had come, but Mello had begun to feel very old.

"Who says that doesn't have its own kind of promise?" he mused bitterly as he took the rest of the stairs to his room, leaving the door open for Matt. He was feeling magnanimous tonight.

After all, he had a stash of chocolate in the drawer of the shared nightstand between the two beds. It was high time to make use of it.


	2. part II

It was two o' clock when Mello woke up again, a thin sheen of sweat sticking him to his sheets. Eyes adjusting to the dark, cursing at the new ache in his stomach, he rolled into a sitting position and glared at the listless clock, flashing its bright red numbers across the room at him. Two sixteen, to be precise.

_What the fuck._

His mouth was dry. Terribly dry, and his stomach and the back of his throat felt queasy.

Mello thought of going back to sleep, just falling down again, fucking everything and attempting to sleep again, but his head was starting to hurt and his mouth was so _dry._

_So thirsty._

_Well, it wouldn't hurt to get something to drink. _The kitchens were just downstairs, after all. Mello looked over at Matt. Still sound asleep; still snoring like a lazy giant slug. After sitting for a moment longer, Mello slipped from the bed, taking in the feel of the cold wooden floor against his bare feet. Possibly, chocolate and vodka before bed was not a good combination. He would have to remember that. Right now his brain felt cloudy in a way he did not appreciate; cloudy and very, very tired. Not good for concentration. And there was a test in a week. Mello hadn't even begun to study; he didn't know what he'd been thinking. He would need a clear mind and an extra all-nighter tacked on to his usual prep routine if he was going to come out on top.

_If you ever are_, his internal thoughts chimed in deviously, unkindly, and Mello swallowed a lump rising suddenly in his throat. Alcohol was unnerving. _Never again. I can't afford it. Any of it._

The hallway was, weirdly enough, warmer than the room Matt and Mello shared. The lump completely vanished from his throat, Mello snorted. That was just like Roger. Fuck the rooms, that was just for the children anyway, and they were young. They could stand the cold.

In a way it was true, because if you could stand Wammy's, sleeping in an ice-cold room in the winter was small fucking beans. Mello walked quickly past the four doors between his own room and the stairs—the last one of these was Near's. Of course, they put they white runt in the most convenient place. Not only was he closest to the kitchen, god forbid Near ever really had to walk too far, but he was the only student at Wammy's who seemed to be exempt from the roommate rule. And he had his own bathroom. Not that Mello had ever had occasion to be in Near's room, but he'd seen it on occasion when the brat had kept the door open. It was big enough to be a fucking quad. And it was dead silent now, being that it was two o' clock and Near religiously went to bed at midnight (_that_ tidbit of information had been extremely useful for pranks when Mello and Matt had been younger).

Mello started down the stairs, mouth and tongue thirsting for water, and fumbled for the light switch on the wall which would illuminate Wammy's surprisingly quaint kitchen. His eyes cast around in the dark, adjusting to the piles of clean dishes laid out on the granite countertop spanning one whole side of the room, the discreetly humming refrigerator, decorated sparsely with drawings done by some of the younger children, to the table where...

Mello's hand stopped, having found the light switch after many fruitless efforts, but he did not flick it up. Instead, he only stared at the one inhabitant of Wammy House's kitchen at two-twenty a.m..

"_Near_?"

"Hello, Mello." Near's voice was flat like an automated reply. _Robot, _Mello thought, but he didn't say it. He was too thirsty and Matt wasn't there to appreciate it anyway.

"Where is Matt?" Near said, like he'd read Mello's mind. The question mark was barely perceptible in his tone.

"Asleep," Mello shrugged, walking to the sink and grabbing a clean glass. He began to fill it, ignoring Near's eyes on his back. Only when he was finished did he turn around and stare in what he thought was a bored fashion, in Near's general direction as he slowly drank his water. His mouth and aching head were screaming at him to drink faster, but damned if he was going to look desperate. Damned if he was going to drink and run.

Near had ceased looking at Mello, really, and was now staring somewhere slightly behind and to the left of him, pulling a strand of hair slowly through his pale fingers. In thought, he guessed. _Or catatonic. _Mello smirked.

"What the hell are you doing up right now?" he asked. Not that he particularly cared to have a conversation with _Near_ of all people, but he was curious.

"I could not sleep," Near responded expressionlessly and too quickly, like he'd been waiting for the question and was reading the answer from a script.

Mello stared at him. Near, having trouble sleeping? What, because he'd gone to bed at 12:15 on account of the new year and fucked up his special schedule? What was happening to the world? He smirked again.

"Worried about what the new year will bring?" Mello asked, mockingly, and Near deigned to look at him for a fleeting second. "Maybe you should be. When I'm L, years from now, you'll look back on this day as the one where you finally became afraid of your competition. Well, I've been here all along, Near. Glad you've finally realized it."

Something told Mello that now would be the perfect time to turn on his heel and walk out, except he still felt thirsty, so he turned and filled his glass again, trying to keep one eye on Near. He hoped the bastard wouldn't speak. Near was no longer looking at him. He had begun to twirl his hair slowly again, and Mello watched despite himself, glass halfway to his mouth.

"What does Mello think it will be like to be L?" Near asked.

It was not what Mello expected. He paused, frowning. _What the fuck._

"Five times better than being Mello, that's for sure," he said savagely, bringing the glass up and draining it fast this time. He set it on the counter behind him and made to leave.

"Who is Mello?" Near asked. _What the... _Only Near would ask such obtuse questions, like he was some mysterious know-it-all instead of an undersized loser in pyjamas.

"_I'm_ Mello, you creepy little fuck. Five times better than Near, and don't you forget it."

"Who is Near?" Near asked, the ghost of a barren grin pulling at the side of his mouth.

Mello purposefully strode around Near's chair, pushing roughly up against the back of it as he exited the kitchen. Near did not turn to watch him leave, but once Mello reached the hall again, he heard the little twit speak again, softer as if he was speaking to himself.

"That is why you will not succeed."

The words sawed their way into that hot, angry space in Mello's chest, the one he'd tried to shut off year after year, and he stifled himself on their arrival. He would not respond. He would not give Near the satisfaction of even knowing he had heard.

Instead, he would show him. He would defeat Near, and his stupid words that meant nothing—_he thinks he's intimidating me somehow, no doubt. As if. _This year would be his year. There would be no more time to play. It was all work from here on out. Mello lay back on his bed and stared up at the dark ceiling, thinking, planning. When all this was over, they would look at him like he'd been looking at himself for the past three months. Like they'd never laid eyes on him before. They would notice him. By the end, they'd have no choice.

Because, come hell or high water, he'd _make_ them.


End file.
